Uno Happily Irrepressible!

What's the most unpredictable erratic toy a cat can be confronted with? It will wave tantalizing at you from across the room but as soon as you get ready to nail it, suddenly the thing will be on the ceiling instead. Sometimes when you run after it, it will simply disappear into thin air. Sometimes it lands on you or worse, on another cat and then you don't dare to try to catch it until it moves away from your body or the other cat's body. If you're actually lucky enough to pounce on it, your paws are met with...nothing except the floor or the bed or whatever was under the toy when you pounced on it.

I finally figured out two things about this toy. It's controlled by the humans and when a human picks up the toy to induce you to play with it, the little keychain that's attached to the toy makes a specific noise. When you hear that noise, you know the toy should be coming out to play. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...the toy is red and small and the humans call it a laser pointer.

Today Mom told us that the rumors that have been swirling around here, are true. In 3 to 4 weeks, another DOG is going to be joining our family. Now I don't know what Mom thinks we cats need with another dog around, one sometimes is more than enough for us to put up with. Mom says not to worry, that when he comes, he will be only 8 weeks old and about the size of us cats. She also added that as long as we don't get too rough, we can teach him to play with us and also to RESPECT us. I don't know about the play part, but I do like what she said about the respect part of this. Since he's a German Shepherd like Destiny, I figure we cats better whip his tail into shape before he gets big. When I was griping to Mom about another dog joining our family, she asked me to think of one thing I could like about him and tell what it is. Well, the one thing I like about him is that he's the same color as I am. He's solid black just like me!

My family and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a year ahead that's better than the one we leave behind us. To everyone who observes a different holiday than Christmas, we wish you a very happy holiday, a Happy New Year, and a year ahead that's better than the one we leave behind us. We also thank everyone for your appreciation of our kitty family, our diaries, our photos, etc, and for your caring, prayers, healing thoughts, power of the paw, and other such positives that you've given us through this tough year that's seen too many Bridge crossings a long difficult medical situation for Mom, and a difficult challenge for me in dealing with my feline vestibular syndrome.

Eating can sometimes be quite a struggle around here, particularly for me. Never mind that the cat food dishes are well filled with a good quality cat food that the cats all find quite palatable. Whenever I have something to eat, I also instantly have a very persistent little beggar/thief hovering around me. Despite being one eyed, a bit off-balance, and having the handicap of a head tilt to the right, Uno has honed her begging and thieving skills to a fine art when it comes to my food. It should be noted that Uno rarely begs or steals food from anybody else except me. She obviously knows she has me wrapped around her somewhat spoiled (somewhat? more like very spoiled) little paw.

Tonight as soon as she saw my Taco Bell sack, Uno immediately sank her fangs into the corner of it in an attempt to get at the contents before I did. I moved the bag to a position behind me where it was between me and my pillow, and pretty much out of Uno's reach. Uno went into rapid digging mode to try to pry the bag out from between my back and the pillow. I lifted the bag up above my head. Uno nimbly hopped up on my shoulder and the pillow behind my head and with a swipe of her paw, stuck her claws into the bag. She pulled at it. I intervened, loosening her grip on the bag.

Seeing a prospect of snagging a treat, Trudy and Splat Cat set up positions near the bag. However, Uno wasn't going to tolerate any competition. With a big meow that only a Siamese or a Siamese mix can make, Uno fired off two slaps of her right paw in rapid succession, convincing Trudy and Splat Cat to back off.

Now came the hard part. I had to open the bag to get myself something to eat. As soon as I cracked the bag open, a little black head dove into the bag with the speed of a striking snake. Quickly I pried Uno's jaws from the smaller bag that contained the quesadilla. I then extracted a piece of the quesadilla from the bag and quickly moved it to my mouth to take a bite, dodging Uno's paw as I did so. Instantly Uno turned, snagged a piece of my quesadilla, and darted out of my reach to enjoy her pilfered prize.

In a very short time, Uno was right back in front of me. First she tried begging for another piece of quesadilla. When that failed, she tried snagging one. I moved the quesadilla out of her reach, inadvertently moving it too close to Little Skittles who stood on the other side of me, hoping I would give her a little bite. As the quesadilla came within Skittles' reach, she deftly snapped off a piece of it for herself, then leaped away to enjoy it before Uno could take it from her.

Enough of this! I decided to take the peaceful route in eating my quesadilla. I broke off a piece and tossed it past Uno. She immediately went to retrieve it. I then gave bits to Skittles, Splat Cat, and Trudy, then threw another piece to Uno to keep her busy a minute. This strategy gave me a little time to eat in peace. By repeating this strategy as needed, I was able to finish my quesadilla minus a few bits of course (MOL).

After my meal was done, I wadded up the empty food bags and tossed them into the trash can. Trudy promptly fished them out of the trash can and brought them back to me. She clearly didn't believe they were really empty, after all they still smelled like food. I threw the bags in the trash can again, Trudy retrieved them again. After a few repeats of this, I took the bags into the garage and put them in the trash can out there, where they were well out of the reach of my little beggars/thieves/trash retrievers! As I came back in, I passed the group of well filled dishes of cat food. I guess cat food simply doesn't offer the cats the entertainment value, taste, or challenge that they get from begging/stealing bits of human food!

Mom's gotta go again today to have another surgery. Destiny got to go back to Mom's best friend's kennel for another vacation while Mom recuperates. We kitties however, get left out. We have to do without Mom while she's gone. Sure we have Russ staying here to take care of us while Mom is in the hospital, but nobody else is Mom. The best we cats can do is start planning our strategies to show our displeasure over Mom being gone. We already started carrying out some of our strategies to show our displeasure over having Russ instead of Mom as a caretaker. Russ left a big box of miscellaneous small items sitting on a chair in the living room. One of us, I won't say who, I don't want to be a tattle tale neither would I want to incriminate myself!...managed to dump the box and strew its contents across most of the living room. Mom heard the noise and came into the living room. Of course by the time she reached the scene of the crime, we cats had already fled. There wasn't a cat in sight. From our hiding places we watched as Mom picked up the mess and put the things back into the box...that wasn't exactly how we planned things to go. Russ was supposed to have to pick up the mess, not Mom. The timing of the instigator of the crime was off, we struck too early. Problem is, now Mom will warn Russ to keep his things in his room with the door closed so we can't strike his things again. And he missed out on seeing the big mess we made to show our displeasure and we missed out on getting to see his reaction. Oh well, we're sure to make the next few days interesting for him MOL!

Lately the weather outside has been getting colder, the leaves are falling from the trees, and Mom now has to put on her hoodie when she takes Destiny outside. We kitties are so lucky (or smart!) we never have to go outdoors to relieve ourselves! I don't even know why Mom likes dogs or wants them when she has to go outside in all kinds of weather, no matter how hot, humid, rainy, windy, cold, snowy, uncomfortable, or nasty the weather happens to be; all because of the dog. Then Mom has to stand around out there and wait for Destiny to get down to business and relieve herself. Compared to us kitties, dogs certainly seem to be helpless creatures in some ways! Dogs also seem to have demented taste buds. I can't count the number of times Destiny has snatched or tried to snatch poop out of our litter pans. If she succeeds evading Mom and snatching the poop, Destiny then EATS it. Ugh! Except for mother cats who have young babies and need to keep the nest clean, no self-respecting cat would ever get caught dead eating poop!

On the positive side, Destiny likes us cats. She's even careful not to step on us when she goes through the house. For our part, we cats just make sure Destiny never finds out that when she has to be escorted outside to relieve herself, we like to sit on the cat trees in the windows in the nice comfortable house and laugh at her. Actually we pity her. We don't pity Mom though for having to take her outside because it was Mom's choice to let this dog creature live with us. Poor dog doesn't even know how to use a litter pan. Dogs also don't know how to cover their own waste. (Don't remind me Mom, I know some of us kitties play the "dump and go" game and don't cover our waste either but at least we're smart enough not to let Mom catch those of us who "dump and go" without covering. Actually when the "dump and goers" leave their mess uncovered, there's a few others of us who will disgustedly get in the litter pan and cover the lazy offender's mess because the rest of us don't want to see or smell or take a chance on stepping in it either!)

Now I gotta go..not THAT kind of go! I gotta go grab my favorite spot on the cat tree because Mom's getting ready to take Destiny outside again and I'm not the only kitty here who's in the mood to watch the Destiny doggy doo-doo show. Why do humans want dogs anyway? That's a question we cats still haven't managed to answer.

As time passes, Uno continues to adjust to her Feline Vestibular Syndrome conditiion. She's getting better at jumping up on things without losing her balance. It seems that where jumping up on things is concerned, much of her learning is by trial and error. At least now when she misses her target, she is becoming more and more likely to land on her feet. (It always scares me that she'll hurt herself when she jumps, misses, and fails to land on her feet although so far, even when she doesn't land on her feet she hasn't hurt herself. I catch her whenever I can.)

One big thing I've noticed about Uno's FVS, besides the head tilt, is that (hopefully temporarily) it's changed her personality. She's more nervous and anxious in her relationships with the other cats. Unless, she's lying down, when other cats get too close to her she gets agitated and smacks at them. I suspect she's afraid they'll knock her off balance. So far, since developing FVS, instead of playing with the other cats, Uno prefers to play with inanimate objects and my hands. She likes to lie down in my lap and bat at my hands, grab them with her forepaws, and then bite them. When she bites them, she totally inhibits her bite, never putting any real pressure on my fingers at all.

I hope Uno becomes more at ease with the other cats again and that she'll reach a point where she feels able to resume being her former self, at least enough to be able to play with the other cats again. (While typing this I had more feline help than I needed! Uno pulled the plug on my laptop and as soon as I'd plugged it back in, Jag turned off the surge protector at which point Gabriel obligingly walked across the keyboard!)

Today I discovered a new plaything, Mom's hip brace. As you may know, Mom has had to wear a hip brace for awhile. As you also may know, I love to lay on Mom's lap. Mom's hip brace has two tabs on some kind of strings, which after the brace is put on, have to be pulled to tighten the brace's top part around Mom's waist. These tabs are fastened to the front of the waist part of the brace with velcro. Before you go assuming anything, NO I didn't chew the strings or bite them in half (although I briefly considered that option I was afraid if I did that, I might get evicted from Mom's lap.) When I slid my forepaw under Mom's shirt to inspect the waist part of the brace, I discovered that the tabs have a plastic edge on them that sticks out a little bit. I further discovered that I could curl my forepaw around that plastic edge and pull the tab away from the front of the waist part of the brace. Once I had freed the tab from the brace, it then hung from the string and I could knock it about. I then freed the second tab from the brace. Now I could play with both tabs.

There was just one thing I hadn't counted on. After I freed the tabs from the brace, the waist part of the brace loosened up and slid upward on Mom's body too much. As a result, Mom had to unseat me from my spot on her lap to readjust the brace and reattach the tabs. As soon as she'd reattached the tabs, I immediately returned to my spot on Mom's lap.

I weighed my action against the consequences of being unseated and decided YEAH it's worth it. The tabs were fun to play with and I certainly got Mom's attention by doing it. So I did it again...and again...until I found Mom's patience has its limits. Mom picked me up and placed me on a pillow near her. As soon as she did that, Gabriel and Buddha immediately took advantage of the situation and took over Mom's lap. Now I have to figure out just how many times I can get away with detaching the tabs and playing with them BEFORE Mom's patience runs out!

Today I decided to play a game I haven't played in a long time. It's called "dresser top bowling". The objective is to clear the dresser top of as many objects as possible by knocking one object into as many other objects as you can and causing these objects to take a dive off the dresser top onto the floor. I was happily minding my own business playing my entertaining little game and had the dresser top mostyly cleared when Mom walked into the room and promptly spoiled my fun. "Uno!" she exclaimed. "Get down from there! You know better than that!"

I saw the can of canned air in Mom's hand and I knew my gig was up. In a flash I flew for the end of the dresser furthest from Mom, to make my escape. However in my hurry, I tripped over one of the objects I hadn't yet managed to send crashing to the floor...til now, that is. Unintentionally, I went crashing down with it. But before I could hit the floor, a pair of hands shot out and caught me midair. I found myself deposited on the bed, where I received a scolding from Mom.

"If you were mad at me, why did you catch me when I fell?" I asked Mom.
"Because I still love you and didn't want you to get hurt," Mom answered me. "Now, why were you making such a mess of the dresser top when you know better, Uno?"
"Well Mom," I replied her. "Since I still keep getting these wonderful DDPs, I figured I have to keep doing something to earn them. So I decided to play my dresser top bowling game since I hadn't played it in ages. And see...it worked!"

In spite of Mom's skepticism, I'm still thrilled at my long streak of DDPs and I'm still thankful for them. I'm also inspired by them. I feel that since I keep getting DDPs, I must make sure I keep doing things worth writing about and then write about them. Tonight I proved to Mom that in spite of having feline vestibular syndrome, I still can also have deadly accurate aim when I want to. Mom was eating a chicken sandwich when I sneaked up behind her. Faster than a snake, I struck. My teeth clamped down on their target, I gave it a good yank, and quickly departed under the bed with my prize. As Mom bit down on her sandwich, her mouth closed on the bun, the lettuce, and what was left of the cheese but her sandwich was now devoid of the chicken. I quickly sped off to my recent favorite hiding place, the back corner of the computer shelf. After what happened to Mom last time she tried to fish me out of that hiding spot, I didn't think she'd dare try to get me out of there again. I was right. Mom didn't come after me. She claimed that after I took the chicken (and part of the cheese) under the bed, it was no longer fit for her to eat. I don't quite know what she meant by that. All I know is that it sure tasted good to me!